Microwave Imaging Device for In-Line Food Inspection

Foreign body contamination is a key issue in food production and packaging industries. The constant increase of mechanized process chain, the variety of materials employed during the production and the growing consumer awareness about food quality arose the number of complaints in the recent years. Several technologies are applied to ensure that products are free from contaminations, but they may fail in detecting low-density plastic or glass fragments contaminants accidentally present inside food/beverage products. To address this issue, a system exploiting microwave imaging is proposed and assessed in this work. To this end, we designed a system which is capable of monitoring of packaged food along the production line, taking into account the specific and challenging constraints arising in such a scenario. Its design and full characterization with full-wave simulation are reported in the paper. The obtained results set the ground for the realization of the prototype of the system.